George Santayana had irrational faith in reason - I have irrational faith in TV.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Boardwalk Empire 3.1: Happy New Year 1923

It's New Year's Eve 1923, the hour of Boardwalk Empire's Season 3 premiere. It's a little after Nucky shot Jimmy dead, at the very end of last year's finale. It's not clear who among Jimmy's people know what happened to Jimmy, but we'll get to that presently.

In the meantime, we meet Gyp Rosetti, a mobster with a skin so thin he kills a man on the road who tried to help him and in the process offered the slightest criticism. Rosetti's a psycho who by the end of the episode has not only Nucky but Rothstein, Lucky, and Lansky on his list.

The New Year's Eve Party is classic Boardwalk Empire, done up in perfect period style with costumes and music. Eddie Cantor provides the entertainment, with Lillian "Billie" Kent, who winds up half naked looking good in bed with Nucky after the party.

Out in Chicago, Van Alden's selling irons, and accidentally saves Irish mobster O'Bannon's life from Capone's ire. Will Van Alden end up working for O'Bannon? He's halfway there.

Nucky asks Manny to kill someone for him. It's New Year's Eve, but, as Manny's wife helpfully advises, just for the "goyim". Right, the Jewish New Year is in fact tonight - L'shana tova. Manny's a great character-

But that brings me back to what I saying at the beginning. It's not clear who knows what about what happened to Jimmy, but Richard has found out who was responsible for killing Jimmy's wife - the undeclared love of Richard's life - and in the one big surprise of tonight's episode, Richard shoots Manny dead. What will Richard do if/when he finds out that Nucky killed Jimmy?

I'm going to miss Manny and his Yiddish, but it's good to have Boardwalk Empire and the 1920s back on the screen.

About Me

Paul Levinson, PhD, is Professor of Communication &
Media Studies at Fordham University in New York City.His 8 nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997),
Digital McLuhan (1999), Realspace (2003), Cellphone (2004), and New New Media (2009, 2nd edition 2012), have been the
subject of major articles in the New York Times, Wired, the Christian Science
Monitor, and have been translated into 12 languages. His science fiction novels include The Silk Code (1999, ebook 2012), Borrowed Tides (2001), TheConsciousness Plague (2002, 2013), The Pixel Eye (2003), The Plot To SaveSocrates (2006, ebook 2012), and Unburning Alexandria (2013).His short stories
have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, Edgar, and Sturgeon Awards.Paul Levinson appears on "The
O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News), "The CBS Evening News,"“NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” (PBS),“Nightline” (ABC), NPR, and numerous
national and international TV and radio programs. His 1972 album, Twice Upon a Rhyme, was re-issued in 2009 (CD) and 2010 (remastered vinyl). He reviews the best of
television in his InfiniteRegress.tv blog, and was listed in The Chronicle of
Higher Education’s “Top 10 Academic Twitterers” in 2009.

e-mail received from a reader:Dear Paul, I just dreamed of airships flying between raindrops. I just returned from 2042 CE, where I sold my hardcover copy of The Plot to Save Socrates for seventy million Neo-Euros, because it had your response to this e-mail from way back in 2007 scotch-taped onto the inside of the cover. A Paul Levinson collector paid top Neo-Euro, because of the authentic archaic e-mail printout from you. It turns out that not many of your e-mails from before your tenure as CEO of HBO/Cinemax and terms as United Nations Secretary General will survive that far into the future. So, please respond to this e-mail, to help found my great-grandchildren's fortune. My Will will stipulate that they must share with your great grandchidren. Thanks! Tom